Late last week, hundreds of Turkish troops and about 20 tanks made their way across the Iraqi border, and south to the town of Bashiqa, located just a dozen or so miles northeast of ISIS-held Mosul. The Iraqi government was caught seemingly totally off guard by this move. As a result the Iraqis have demanded Turkey pull their forces out within 48 hours or they will take their case to the United Nations.

Khaled al-Obeidi, Iraq’s defense minister, made it very clear that Turkey’s sudden escalation into the ground conflict in Iraq was not invited, planned, nor even announced. He’s quoted in RT.com thusly:

“No matter the size of the force entering Iraq, it is rejected. It was possible to undertake this sort of prior coordination without creating circumstances which contributed to a crisis between the two countries.”

Reuters quoted one Turkish official as saying “our soldiers are already in Iraq. A battalion of soldiers has gone there. Training was already being given in that region for the last two to three years. This (the deployment) is a part of that training.”

Regardless of who is being trained at the complex, the area has been in flux over the last year and a half, with ISIS holding many nearby towns at one time or another. How exactly this fits into Turkey’s claim that the base has been operational for so long is unclear. Even if the base has been in Turkish hands for even just a matter of months, not years, the recent arrival of heavy armor and a massive increase in troop strength at the site is puzzling; for the Iraqis, it is very alarming.

Advertisement

Turkey has responded to Iraq’s claims that their movement of troops by saying they would not send in any more forces. Yes, you read that right: they did not say they would withdraw the forces they just sent into the country, just that they would not augment this already beefed-up garrison at Bashiqa any further.

Turkey may have decided to add the couple hundred troops and 20 or so tanks to its Iraqi training operation out of concerns that the looming “Mosul offensive,” the long-awaited operation by Iraqi allied forces to take the city back from ISIS once and for all, may push enemy fighters their way. Under such circumstances a heavy force protection posture may be a necessity. (Although one would think ISIS fighters would attempt to run west, toward Syria, not east, deeper into Kurdish dominated territory.)

Why would Turkey want to get involved at this level with the nasty ground conflict in Iraq, especially without coordination with the Iraqi government? Why is the Turkish training base so close to a massive ISIS stronghold? What does the Kurdish government in Erbil say about all this? Additionally, would it not have been far easier and less politically sensitive to move the relatively small training operation instead of putting so many forces at risk and causing an international incident in the process?

As the fight against ISIS in Iraq becomes more complex and the various players become more deeply entrenched and invested in it, it will become harder and harder to have peace should it actually end. In other words, if things don’t change soon, even if ISIS is purged from Iraq, a bloody civil war would likely follow.

Obama’s “strategy” for defeating ISIS is really just a very expensive shot clock that will turn blood red and buzz loudly in 410 days. The worst part is that for every day that goes by where a clear and plausible strategy is not established, it will be much tougher for the next Commander-in-Chief to do so.